Tuesday, 23 August 2016

Bow Wow Wow at The Garage on 20 August 2016

The last time I saw Bow Wow Wow was in 2012 at The Islington Academy and the line-up featured two of the original members: singer Annabella Lwin
and bassist Leigh Gorman. Since then, Annabella and Gorman have clearly
fallen-out (Bow Wow Wow was always a rancorous band) and she’s now doing her own incarnation of Bow Wow Wow in which she
is the sole originator and is backed by entirely new musicians. (Her version of
the band is called Annabella’s Original Bow Wow Wow. Confusingly, Gorman is continuing with his
own edition. Seriously, that would be like Blondie touring without Deborah
Harry or The Banshees minus Siouxsie). For all I know a lawsuit has been
involved at some point between Gorman and Annabella over ownership of the name.
In her between-song banter Saturday night at The Garage Annabella said something along the lines
of, “If there are any of my original musicians in the crowd tonight, I hope you
understand why I need to do this ...”

Much as I enjoyed Saturday night, the 2012 gig was infinitely
better in musical terms. Bow Wow Wow’s best New Wave-era tunes are catchy and
minimalist but deceptively complex and sophisticated with African and Latin polyrhythms
and surf guitar influences. It felt like the newbies in the band were loud and
powerful, but steamrolled over those nuances.

The 2012 concert really was a definitive greatest hits
performance and I couldn’t complain about the track selections. Last night’s set
list was weird and patchy. On plus side: essential stone-cold classics like “C30,
C60, C90 Go!”, “Louis Quatorze”, “Mile High Club”, “Aphrodisiac”, “WORK”, “I
Want My Baby on Mars”, “Baby Oh No”, “See Jungle (Jungle Boy).” They sounded as
sexy, funny, punky and exotic as ever. On the downside: no “Uomo Sex Al Apache”
(a 2012 concert highlight), “Elimination Dancing”, “Sexy Eiffel Tower”, "TV Savage" or “Chihuahua”.
(To be fair, they seemingly never play “Chihuahua” live. I’d argue that song is
Bow Wow Wow’s magnum opus. I suspect
this is because Malcolm McLaren forced Annabella to sing lyrics like “I can’t
dance / And I can’t sing / I can’t do anything ... I’m a rock’n’roll puppet in a band called Bow
Wow Wow .. I’m a horrid little idiot / can’t you see ...” etc). They treated “I
Want Candy” as the climactic big finale – understandably, because it was their
biggest chart hit but it’s not their best song by a long shot (I bet Annabella
is secretly sick to death of it).

Annabella is presumably calling the shots now and she displayed
a strange lack of confidence in her own back catalogue. They padded things out
with a cover of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'” (an interesting
experiment to hear that given a Burundi beat / tribal make-over but hardly
essential) and then she introduced a brand new song. And with the best will in
the world, it wasn’t good. They really tried to sell it, with Annabella delivering
it enthusiastically and grinning hard for the duration (and urging us that “it’s
available on iTunes and Amazon.com”) and the bassist giving the thumbs-up
(cringe!). But it was frankly mediocre, with
a tired eighties slapped-bass funk sound (Pal said it sounded like the
Red Hot Chilli Peppers).

The charismatic Annabella herself was on great form. At 49
she’s still gorgeous (killer cheekbones, shapely legs), still kinetic (she
dances hard the whole time – she’s like a whirling dervish) and her voice is
still an alluring girlish punkette coo. Why isn’t Annabella celebrated as one
of the great punk frontwomen just a few notches below Siouxsie and Deborah Harry
or the equal of Poly Styrene and Ari Upp? I suspect the rockist Mojo generation simply don’t
rate Bow Wow Wow.

Anyway, something was clearly riling Annabella because a few
times between songs she demanded, “Am I too old? Do you think I’m too old? I’ve
been told I’m too old.” I’d love to know what that was about. (For what it’s
worth: considering she was only 14 when she joined Bow Wow Wow, Annabella is substantially
younger than most of her post-punk peers). Her stage-wear was disappointingly lacklustre:
she was wearing one of her own tour
merchandise t-shirts! She’d customised it (shredding it up and wearing it
backwards) – but still! This is someone who used to wear head-to-toe Vivienne
Westwood pirate gear! And her hair was a shiny, jet-black 100% acrylic wig. In 2012
she sported her own hair in long cornrow braids tied with ribbons. The wig was
an odd touch. If Annabella was worried about her hair, she should just resurrect
her trademark early eighties Mohawk: no woman ever looked more beautiful with a
Mohawk than Annabella.

Similarly, the crowd was a mixed bag: it’s been a while
since I’ve been to a gig where the audience was predominantly older first or
second-generation punks. Life had clearly been tough on some of these people. As
I hoped, some looked great in vintage Vivienne Westwood. But there was a
dismaying amount of older guys wearing anoraks, dad jeans and trainers! You’re
letting the side down, people!

2 comments:

Sweet! And a little sad too, of course. Obviously Annabella's former band-mates aren't going to be in the audience, so no need to address them...and yeah, everyone who IS in the audience already knows why she has to do this, so really no need to say it out loud. In any case, I've had crushes on Annabella, Barbarossa, and especially Ashman since I was about 13. (And Gorman would do too in a pinch.) Bow Wow Wow always has been and always will be one of my favorite bands from the '80s.

Great to hear from you Alex! And yes – I’ve loved Bow Wow Wow since I was a kid in the eighties too. What a sexy, irresistible band. And the best of their songs hold up so well. Watch the concert clip I post above – it captures the original line-up in peak form (and wearing killer Vivienne Westwood outfits!). Ashman is chewing gum the whole time! The bit where “Mile High Club” turns into ““Uomo Sex Al Apache” makes me shudder in ecstasy! By the way: Nina Hagen is playing in London on 24 September – with Lene Lovich as her opening act!